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Just about every network has upped the ante in recent years for original sci-fi fare, and Spike TV is turning to an Emmy winner to get its Red Mars series off the ground.

Deadline reports Greg Yaitanes has been tapped to direct the series, which is based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy. Yaitanes is a TV veteran and has directed dozens of shows over the years. His sci-fi resume includes Lost, Heroes, Children of Dune, Joss Whedon’s short-lived Drive and The Invisible Man. He’s spent the past few years mostly working on House M.D., Banshee and Quarry — winning an Emmy for his work on House M.D.

The 10-episode series aims to capture the ambitious spirit of Robinson’s trilogy, which chronicles humanity’s colonization and transformation of Mars. The books — Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars — track the efforts to colonize the planet from several different viewpoints with a story spanning almost two centuries. The series traces the journey to Mars, as well as the political and social challenges that await the crew once they arrive and try to start a new civilization ... not to mention the challenges of actually colonizing a planet.

Red Mars is scheduled to enter production this summer for a 2017 debut, and will mark Spike’s most ambitious original sci-fi project, and the first since the short-lived Blade: The Series back in 2006 (best to just forget about that one, though).

Do you think Yaitanes is the right man to bring this ambitious world to life?